This is How We Change the World Ch. 04

Maddy stroked the part between Lyric's eyebrows, now crumpled into a dissatisfied frown. She thought that having her hand there maybe helped, that maybe it gave Lyric leeway to not make eye contact.

"I'm sorry it's been so hard for you," she said. "Do you think filming is making it worse?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it's so visual. You have to spend so much time looking at yourself when we edit."

Lyric paused to think. Her posture relaxed a tiny bit, as did the grumpy wrinkle between her eyebrows. "I like how you... how you frame me. How you see me. It's... it's not that."

"Good. I wouldn't want you to think I'm, I dunno, objectifying you somehow. I enjoy making the videos, but I only want to do it if you want to do it. I don't care how good they are. If they make you unhappy, we should stop."

She laughed, but it was a miserable sort of laugh. "You're the only one who isn't objectifying me."

Maddy smiled, still stroking Lyric's forehead and eyebrows lightly with her fingertips.

"I'll always be all the things I've... I am what I've done."

"Did you have a flashback or something?"

Lyric shook her head gently, and closed her eyes.

"I'm sorry, Lyric. I'm trying. I don't mean to keep guessing. I just... I don't know what you're going through, and... it hurts to see you like this."

The girl in her lap was quiet for a while after that. Maddy let it play out because she could see the little muscles in Lyric's face working, like she was gearing up to say something. Practicing the words in her head before saying them out loud. She watched it happen in real time. She didn't mind the wait: they had a connection again.

When it looked like Lyric's struggling was becoming painful, she said, "Has this sort of thing happened before?"

Lyric nodded.

"Do you usually just cry it out for a while, and nobody bothered you because you were alone?"

Lyric nodded.

"I'm sorry if I'm... intruding on that. Do you want me to go away for a little while? I could go sit at the--"

"No."

"Are you sure? The library is just down the--"

"No," Lyric said, grabbing her knee from an awkward angle. "No."

"You want me to stay?"

"Yes," she said quickly.

"Can I hold you?"

This time, Lyric didn't answer. She just pushed herself up, and moved even closer. Maddy put a big pillow in her lap, and Lyric curled up into a smaller ball than Maddy would have thought imaginable for someone nearly her own size. Once Lyric stopped fidgeting, and looked settled, Maddy reached back and pulled the blanket off the back of the couch to drape over her.

Maddy reached over and forked off a bite of pancake, now fairly well drenched in butter and syrup, and offered it to Lyric. Her little girlfriend only looked at it for a moment before opening her mouth, and Maddy was only too happy to feed it to her. One bite at a time.

When she asked Lyric if she wanted another one, Lyric nodded, so Maddy extricated herself for a few minutes to whip up another two: one for each of them. While she was up, Lyric turned on the TV, which felt like a really good sign.

They didn't do much for the rest of the day beyond that. They laid on the couch together, in a wide variety of positions but always where they were touching. Skin to skin, when Maddy could manage it. Maddy got up countless times, to turn on a light, and get them food and water, and turn off a light. The only thing Lyric did was go to the bathroom.

The sun was coming up by the time Lyric was sitting on her own. She was still only occupying a very small space, one knee up near her shoulder with the other knee down, feet tucked in tight, but she was upright and she was responsive and her eyes had gone back to white.

"Do you think you could tell me about it?" Maddy asked, finally uncorking a question she'd been sitting on all day. Lyric looked sideways at her, but Maddy immediately jumped in and added, "It's okay if you don't want to. I just... I want to be able to help. I..." She swallowed. "I want to know."

It looked like, at some point in the day Lyric must have come to an answer in her head, because it didn't take very long before she said, "I had an episode."

"What does that... what kind of episode."

"Body stuff," Lyric said, shrinking even a little more. "It's, like, not being happy with where I am, but..." Her eyes were far away. "I don't like what I see a lot of the time, but I... I push through. I keep my chin up. I keep going. Today, though, it just felt..."

"It was a bad one," Maddy said, voice pitched up a little at the end like a question.

Lyric nodded. "Made a lot of things feel pointless. I mean, I blew up my whole life for this, and... and I mean, for this," she said, gesturing dramatically to her face.

"I have a different opinion on that," Maddy replied, with a very mild smile touching the corners of her lips, "but go on."

Lyric didn't. She slumped and shook her head. Maddy had a feeling that was the end of that, and that feeling turned out to be right. The morning wore on, and Lyric eventually wanted to go to bed. Maddy went with her, letting Lyric curl up next to her, and stayed up a bit later reading. It had been grueling in a way that left her drained, if not exactly tired. Somehow, though, she thought she'd had the better end of it.

She leaned over and kissed Lyric, now dreaming, before turning off the light, but sleep was slow in coming. The day gnawed at her fiercely. She tossed one way, and then the other, and was surprised to find Lyric laying on her side as well, facing Maddy, peering at her in the dark they made. She'd been sure Lyric was asleep earlier.

"Hey," she said, quietly.

Lyric leaned in and kissed her, and then kissed her again. Neither of them managed a word. There was no smiling, no quips in the dark. Just need. Maddy rolled onto her back, and Lyric crawled over her. Between her legs. Pushed inside of her.

Maddy cried out. Grabbed at Lyric. Nails dragging across the skin. Clawing. Lyric buried her face in Maddy's neck, kissing her over and over and over.

She could barely see, and her tired brain could barely process what was happening. Lyric was everywhere. Kissing everywhere. Holding her. It was the most cathartic thing she'd ever experienced. She couldn't remember if she finished or not, because sleep came for both of them the second their bodies slowed, but they slept in each other's arms and they slept deeply.

***

06 Mar 2023

Maddy got up early, feeling refreshed and invigorated. Her mind was buzzing. Lyric was still sleeping, which was not surprising giving how hard the previous day had been for her. Maddy showered, and had to remind herself to keep the singing to a minimum. When she got out. Lyric was still asleep, so before she woke her up Maddy went into the kitchen. This time, breakfast was going to go off smoothly.

She went for eggs and sausage, and about the time the eggs were fully egged Lyric came sniffing out of the bedroom. She looked wary, and was dragging one entire blanket around wrapped over her shoulders, but she was moving and engaging and not crying. She ate while the food was hot, and, every so often, she even smiled. Mostly with her eyes and not her lips, but Maddy knew a smile when she saw one.

"Okay," Maddy said, as Lyric was washing down the last of it with some black coffee. "We need a change of pace today."

"What's wrong with the pace?" Lyric asked, looking slightly afraid.

"Nothing, most of the time," Maddy said, "but after yesterday I think we should do something different. Breathe some fresh air." Then, with a wink, she added, "Not that I wouldn't mind inhaling you this morning."

Lyric blinked at her, and genuinely blushed. She liked making Lyric blush...

This made Maddy's hindbrain go into full riot. She had hardly been flirting with Lyric this whole time. All the things they'd done had happened organically, which was good and awesome in its own way, but Maddy was disappointed in herself. She had game, or at least she had once upon a time. Yes, it had been a few years since she and Amy had cruised bars for a third to bring home, but that was no excuse.

"I have been remiss," she muttered, under her breath.

"Pardon?"

"I said," Maddy said, straightening, "that I want little miss." Before Lyric could respond, and it looked like she was gearing up to do exactly that, Maddy got to her feet. "Do you think you can handle going out? Getting dressed?"

There was a moment when it really looked like Lyric was going to say no, which Maddy would have honored, but then Lyric gave her the strangest little quirk of a smile. Something was happening inside Lyric's head, and whatever it was tipped the scales. She nodded.

"Alright. March your cute little butt into the bathroom and shower. You smell like pussy."

"You smell like pussy," Lyric murmured, smirking, as she got up. As she did, she left the blanket behind. It felt significant.

***

"Never," Lyric said, as they leaned against the railing. Below and in front of them, a great big brown bear was lumbering around underneath a tree, sniffing.

"How have you never been to the Bronx zoo?"

Lyric turned her head slightly, and gave Maddy an arched eyebrow, but Maddy was having none of it.

"Seriously. It's, like, twenty minutes by bus. On a bad day."

Lyric shrugged, wishing that her original explanation, sarcastic silence, had been enough. "I don't know. It's not free."

Maddy nodded slowly, and took another bite of her hot dog. "My parents used to bring me here when I was a kid."

This set off Lyric's radar. "You... almost never talk about your parents."

There was a brief moment, a flash, where it looked like Maddy was about to be either snide or defensive with her, but then Maddy's eyes went distant. "No, I..." She took another bite of her hot dog, and gave Lyric a very brief glance before gesturing into the distance. "I wanted to be an elephant caretaker."

"Aww! Did you want to ride them?"

Maddy blushed and rolled her eyes. "I mean, yes, but it was a whole thing. I didn't need to be a vet, right, because vet school sounded hard. Elephants are big animals, but they're not very dangerous. It didn't seem like a job most people would want, so as long as I was okay with taking a stiff bristle brush to scrub an elephant's ass, I would probably have job security."

"How old were you when you had this plan?"

"Ten?" Maddy said, after thinking for a moment. "Maybe a little younger? I mean, it turns out elephants are super deadly and dangerous to be around, but for ten year old Madalyn it was a plan."

"You had it all figured out so early!" Lyric took a bite of her hot dog, and leaned over so that her shoulder was smushed against Maddy's. "Jealous."

"You didn't have any dreams about when you'd... Right. We talked about that."

Lyric looked down at her hands. "I know I... I know I said I don't really have any dreams, or long term plans, but that's sorta not true. I do have one."

Maddy looked at her with genuine interest. It was humbling. She cared so obviously.

"Well, it's not a dream, but, like, I've had this idea bubbling in the back of my head. When I..." She turned to look over her shoulder, to make sure they were out of earshot of anyone else. "When I'm... with a john, and I start paying attention to body language stuff, I... I realized that at a certain point, I'm doing, like, armchair psychology stuff. And then, a couple nights ago, I was thinking about the... the video thing, and I was thinking about kinks, and how they work, and how to manipulate them, play into them, and where do they come from, and..."

"You mentioned psychology once."

Lyric didn't nod, or blush, or say anything at first. She just looked at Maddy, waiting to see the smirk that would tell her that her dream was stupid. Maddy didn't do that though, so after a few seconds, Lyric said, "I've been thinking about it more."

"What were your grades like in high school? Did you graduate?" The second sentence was added in an almost-stupor. "I can't believe I've never asked that. I just assumed, but I'm still trying to grasp, like, the timeline of you leaving home."

"I graduated," Lyric said. "My grades were good."

"Of course they were," Maddy said, smiling warmly. "Is getting a degree an old idea or a new one?"

"New," Lyric said, blushing. "Ish."

Maddy nodded, trying and failing to hide a little bit of smugness, which Lyric felt was entirely warranted. Maddy popped the last of her hotdog into her mouth, and laid her hand over Lyric's, and there was such a sudden shiver that ran through her. It was such a small display of affection, and yet it had such an outsized effect on her. It was so much more than kissing someone in public.

She'd been kissed in public. No one had ever held her hand. At least, not anyone that lived in the same time zone, and not in a long time. It was sweet, and tender, and Lyric loved sweet and tender. For her part, Maddy seemed to recognize that she was doing something out of the ordinary. Lyric must have been blushing, even though it was really too cold to have any idea what was going on with her cheeks.

Most of the bears weren't very active, but quite a few of them were visible around their large area. "That's the other thing," she said, giving voice to her thoughts as she had them. "They don't look happy."

Maddy furrowed her brow, and tried to follow Lyric's line of sight. "The bears?"

"They look sad. I used to go to the Brookfield Zoo back... you know... and it always made me sad to think about the animals."

Madalyn nodded slowly. "Yeah," she said, even more slowly. "Not all animals do well in captivity, but... I mean..." She pointed at a young family, parents likely both younger than Lyric with two kids. The children were eagerly reading from a large sign, fingers tracing words as they spoke. "It isn't always great, the way it works out, but it isn't all bad and they're important. Zoos are important. It's easy to grow up in a place like this, the city, and just see... buildings, and people, and concrete, and sure a tree here or there, but..."

"Okay," Lyric said, narrowing her eyes in thought. "Conservation."

"Yeah! I mean, the signs are everywhere. Every little enclosure and habitat has information. Those two are getting a taste of how much bigger the world is. At that age, they think the whole universe is the rooms in their apartment or whatever, and maybe going to the store with mom or dad."

A thought was building. Coming together.

"And exposure to this stuff, early on, is really helpful in forming healthier world views. Pollution. Littering." She waved her hands exaggeratedly. "It's a necessary evil, putting animals in cages, so you don't get Levittown."

"Levittown," Lyric repeated, with a flat affect.

"Yeah!" Maddy gave her a sideways look, and then continued. "Those planned cities where the banks and city managers refused to let any black people in. No latinxs. They just... sequestered a generation of kids, in these towns, from any kind of colorful cultural experience, and it fucked people up! When you can't see a problem, it's hard to conceptualize it. Then when someone else agitates for change, they don't see why anything would need to change. Their little world was pure. You've gotta bring it home." She pointed, in a wide arc. "This? This brings it home."

"You know," Lyric said, solemnly, "I'm having a big brain moment here."

Maddy leaned in close, smiled warmly, and looked at her patiently.

"You're cis. Hypothetically."

"Hypothetically," Maddy repeated, with a smile.

"You're a cis het male," Lyric amended. "The demographic most likely to hurt me."

"Uh huh."

"The most dangerous people, to me, and to everyone at group, it's people who have never met a trans person."

"Uh huh," she said, slower, like she was starting to catch on.

"Nine times out of ten, the only time they're gonna see a trans person is through porn. I'm not keen on knocking on doors to introduce myself to strangers, but I know that almost all of the johns I see are guys who think of themselves as straight. If you want to date a trans girl, you know, we're out there to find. You could just date one of us."

"Uh huh," Maddy said, smiling more broadly and turning her body toward her. She had Maddy's full attention, and it felt good. "I disagree with how you're using the word straight there, but go on."

"That's the one place where our worlds overlap, right? If you draw a venn diagram of my world and a john's world, it's almost two circles. Almost, but not quite."

"I love where this is going."

"I've been struggling with some things, right? I've been struggling to see myself as a person, because a lot of people don't see me as a person. If you don't have rights, you're not a person. I don't just want to be someone's sexualized unicorn. A fetish to get people off." She was speaking faster. She could feel herself ramping up and up, but it was coming out of her in a rush and she didn't want to stop it. She wanted to get to the end. "Sex was a way to get money. I needed money to survive. For a lot of us, that's the easiest way, and sometimes the only way, to access a-a living wage. I can use that."

"Keep going," Maddy said. Lyric caught her eyes, just for a moment, and they were glowing from within.

"We're... exotic. We're different. I can use that. I can use what I make to... in little bits, show people a piece of me."

"Humanize the fetish object."

"Until I'm not an object at all," Lyric said, excitedly. "This is it. This is how we do it."

"Ethical porn," Maddy said, smiling. "I like the way that rolls off the tongue."

"I know we talked about selling the videos, and I think I definitely want to do that, but I want to do more. The subscription thing."

"The one with the interactions," Maddy said, saying the quiet part out loud.

"Exactly!" She nodded, and then nodded again. "I can be careful. Share some things. Things that make me happy. Share my joy. Me in a store, going look at this cute dress I just found! Show some depth in between all the overtly sexual things I want to try. I can do that and maintain my privacy, I think." Then she looked at Maddy, really looked at Maddy, and added, "Right?"

"I think that, between the two of us?" Maddy said. "We can do anything." Then she took Lyric's hand, and they started walking.

The sky had grown dark, and while the zoo itself was generally a well-lighted, well-staffed place, Lyric really wanted to be home. As they got onto the bus, she squeezed Maddy's hand, and said, "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For being you. Getting me out of the house today. Putting up with my shit."

Maddy rolled her eyes. "Those are not all things you need to thank me for, but... you're welcome."

Lyric leaned against her, resting her head on Maddy's shoulder, and a heartbeat later Maddy tilted her head to rest against Lyric's. It was a perfect moment.

***

When they got home, they spent the rest of the night in bed. Most of it in each other's arms. Just after dawn, after fucking for the third time, Lyric was the big spoon. She kissed Maddy's shoulder, and said, "Are you still awake?"

"Mmmm," Maddy said, tiredly.

"I think I just had an idea for something I want to shoot."

"Mmmmm."

"Do you think we can get a desk or something? Or make the table look like a desk?"

"Mmmm-hmmm," Maddy murmured, with the telltale warmth that meant she was smiling when she said it.

"Okay. I wanna try some office stuff."

"Mmmmmmmm."

Maddy softened in her arms and Lyric gave up on sharing any more, but her spark was back. It was back in a big way, and it felt good.